Origins

China

The right of revolution was perhaps first articulated as part of an official state philosophy by the Zhou Dynasty (1122 – 256 BC) of China. To justify their overthrowing of the earlier Shang Dynasty, the Zhou kings promulgated the concept known as the Mandate of Heaven, that Heaven would bless the authority of a just ruler, but would be displeased and withdraw its mandate from a despotic ruler. The Mandate of Heaven would then transfer to those who would rule best. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that the Mandate of Heaven had passed on. Throughout Chinese history, rebels who opposed the ruling dynasty made the claim that the Mandate of Heaven had passed, giving them the right to revolt. Ruling dynasties were often uncomfortable with this, and the writings of the Confucian philosopher Mencius (372 – 289 BC) were often suppressed for declaring that the people have the right to overthrow a ruler that did not provide for their needs.

Islamic tradition

According to scholar Bernard Lewis, the Qur’an and Sunnah have several points to make on governance regarding the right of revolution in Islam. The Quran, for example, makes it clear that there is a duty of obedience:

“Obey God, obey the Prophet, obey those who hold authority over you.”

And this is elaborated in a number of sayings attributed to Muhammad. But there are also sayings that put strict limits on the duty of obedience. Two dicta attributed to the Prophet and universally accepted as authentic are indicative. One says, “there is no obedience in sin”; in other words, if the ruler orders something contrary to the divine law, not only is there no duty of obedience but there is a duty of disobedience. The other pronouncement, “do not obey a creature against his Creator,” again clearly limits the authority of the ruler, whatever form of ruler that may be in front of God.

Medieval Europe

In Europe, the right of revolution may be traced back to Magna Carta, an English charter issued in 1215, that required the King to renounce certain rights and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It included a “security clause” that gave the right to a committee of barons to overrule the will of the King through force if needed. Magna Carta directly influenced the development of parliamentary democracy and many constitutional documents, such as the United States Constitution.

The Golden Bull of 1222 was a golden bull, or edict, issued by King Andrew II of Hungary. The law established the rights of Hungary’s noblemen, including the right to disobey the King when he acted contrary to law (jus resistendi). The Golden Bull is often compared to the Magna Carta; the Bull was the first constitutional document of the nation of Hungary, while the Magna Carta was the first constitutional charter of the nation of England.

John Calvin believed something similar. In a commentary on the Book of Daniel, he observed that contemporary monarchs pretend to reign “by the grace of God,” but the pretense was “a mere cheat” so that they could “reign without control.” He believed that “Earthly princes depose themselves while they rise up against God,” so “it behooves us to spit upon their heads than to obey them.” When ordinary citizens are confronted with tyranny, he wrote, ordinary citizens have to suffer it. But magistrates have the duty to “curb the tyranny of kings,” as had the Tribunes in ancient Rome, the Ephori in Sparta, and the Demarchs in ancient Athens. That Calvin could support a right of resistance in theory did not mean that he thought such resistance prudent in all circumstances. At least publicly, he disagreed with the Scottish Calvinist John Knox’s call for revolution against the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor of England.

The Catholic Church shared Calvin’s prudential concerns—together with a concern for saving the souls even of tyrants, a concern that was irrelevant in double-predestinarian Calvinism. Thus, the Pope condemned Guy Fawkes‘ Gunpowder Plot, and Regnans in Excelsis was widely considered to be a mistake. St. Thomas Aquinas had argued that fear of tyrannicide drove tyrants to worse conduct, and that tyrannicide and rebellion tended to end in the placement of an even worse tyrant on the throne—so that the safest course of action for the people was to endure tyranny for as long as it could be borne, rather than run the larger risks of armed revolution.

The presumption in favor of peace, in just war theory, came to be the more common belief and is the one officially held by the Catholic Church as of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Use in history

Among the revolutionary movements claimed to seek justification as an exercise of the right of revolution include:

American Revolution: The right to revolution would play a large part in the writings of the American revolutionaries. The political tract Common Sense used the concept as an argument for rejection of the British Monarchy and separation from the Empire, as opposed to merely self-government within it. It was also cited in the Declaration of Independence of the United States, when a group of representatives from the various states signed a declaration of independence citing charges against King George III. As the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 expressed it, natural law taught that the people were “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” and could alter or abolish government “destructive” of those rights.

The Right of Revolution as an individual or collective right

Although some explanations of the right of revolution leave open the possibility of its exercise as an individual right, it was clearly understood to be collective right under English constitutional and political theory. As Pauline Maier has noted in her study From Resistance to Revolution, “private individuals were forbidden to take force against their rulers either for malice or because of private injuries….”Instead, “not just a few individuals, but the ‘Body of the People’ had to feel concerned” before the right of revolution was justified and with most writers speaking of a “ ‘whole people who are the Publick,’ or the body of the people acting in their ‘public Authority,’ indicating a broad consensus involving all ranks of society.”

Duty versus right

Some philosophers argue that it is not only the right of a people to overthrow an oppressive government but also their duty to do so. Howard Evans Kiefer opines, “It seems to me that the duty to rebel is much more understandable than that right to rebel, because the right to rebellion ruins the order of power, whereas the duty to rebel goes beyond and breaks it.”

Morton White writes of the American revolutionaries, “The notion that they had a duty to rebel is extremely important to stress, for it shows that they thought they were complying with the commands of natural law and of nature’s God when they threw off absolute despotism.”The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government” (emphasis added). Martin Luther King likewise held that it is the duty of the people to resist unjust laws.

Preconditions to the right of revolution

Some theories of the right of revolution imposed significant preconditions on its exercise, limiting its invocation to the most dire circumstances. In the American Revolutionary context, one finds expressions of the right of revolution both as subject to precondition and as unrestrained by conditions.

On the eve of the American Revolution, for example, Americans considered their plight to justify exercise of the right of revolution. Alexander Hamilton justified American resistance as an expression of “the law of nature” redressing violations of “the first principles of civil society” and invasions of “the rights of a whole people.” For Thomas Jefferson the Declaration was the last-ditch effort of an oppressed people—the position many Americans saw themselves in 1776. Jefferson’s litany of colonial grievances was an effort to establish that Americans met their burden to exercise the natural law right of revolution.

Certain scholars, such as Christian Fritz, have written that with the end of the Revolution, Americans did not renounce the right of revolution. In fact they codified it in their new constitutions.For instance, constitutions considered to be “conservative,” such as those of post-revolutionary Massachusetts in 1780, preserved the people’s right “to reform, alter, or totally change” government not only for their protection or safety but also whenever their “prosperity and happiness reduired it.” This expression was not unusual in the early American constitutions. Connecticut’s 1818 constitution articulated the people’s right “at all times” to alter government “in such a manner as they may think expedient.”

Legal historian Christian Fritz in American Sovereigns: The People and America’s Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War, describes a duality in American views on preconditions to the right of revolution: “Some of the first state constitutions included ‘alter or abolish’ provisions that mirrored the traditional right of revolution” in that they required dire preconditions to its exercise. Maryland’s 1776 constitution and New Hampshire’s 1784 constitutions required the perversion of the ends of government and the endangering of public liberty and that all other means of redress were to no avail.But in contrast, other states dispensed with the onerous preconditions on the exercise of the right. In the 1776 Virginia constitution the right would arise simply if government was “inadequate” and Pennsylvania’s 1776 constitution required only that the people considered a change to be “most conducive” to the public welfare.

Natural law or positive law

Descriptions of the Right of Revolution also differ in whether that right is considered to be a natural law (a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere) or positive law (law enacted or adopted by proper authority for governing of the state).

An example of the dual nature of the right of revolution as both a natural law and as positive law is found in the American revolutionary context. Although the American Declaration of Independence invoked the natural law right of revolution, natural law was not the sole justification for American independence. English constitutional doctrine also supported the colonists’ actions, at least up to a point. By the 1760s, English law recognized what William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England called “the law of redress against public oppression.” Like the natural law’s right of revolution, this constitutional law of redress justified the people resisting the sovereign. This law of redress arose from a contract between the people and the king to preserve the public welfare. This original contract was “a central dogma in English and British constitutional law” since “time immemorial.”The Declaration’s long list of grievances declared that this bargain had been breached.

This well-accepted law of redress justified a people resisting unconstitutional acts of government. Liberty depended upon the people’s “ultimate” right to resist. Unconstitutional commands breaching the “voluntary compact between the rulers and the ruled” could be “ignored” and arbitrary commands opposed with force.This “right” implied a duty on the part of the people to resist unconstitutional acts.As Alexander Hamilton noted in 1775, government exercised powers to protect “the absolute rights” of the people and government forfeited those powers and the people could “reclaim” them if government breached this constitutional contract.

The law of redress had limits like the right of revolution under natural law. The law of redress, like the right of revolution, was not an individual right. It belonged to the community as a whole, as one of the parties to the original constitutional contract.It was not a means of first resort, or response to trivial or casual errors of government. Blackstone’s Commentaries suggested that using the law of redress would be “extraordinary,” for example applying if the king broke the original contract, violated “the fundamental laws,” or abandoned the kingdom.

During the Stamp Act crisis of the 1760s the Massachusetts Provincial Congress considered resistance to the king justified if freedom came under attack from “the hand of oppression” and “the merciless feet of tyranny.” A decade later the “indictment” of George III in the Declaration of Independence sought to end his sovereign reign over the colonies because he violated the original constitutional contract.

As explained in legal historian Christian Fritz’s description of the role of the right of revolution in American Revolution, American independence was justified by conventional theories under Anglo-American constitutional thought at the time about the people’s collective right to cast off an arbitrary king. “Both natural law and English constitutional doctrine gave the colonists a right to revolt against the sovereign’s oppression.” But these understandings about the right of revolution on the eve of the American Revolution rested on a traditional model of government. That model posited the existence of a hypothetical bargain struck in the mists of antiquity between a king and a people. “In this bargain, the people were protected by the monarch in exchange for the people giving the king allegiance. This was a contractual relationship. American revolutionaries accused George III of breaching his implied duty of protection under that contract, thereby releasing the people in the colonies from their allegiance. The sovereign’s breach of the hypothetical contract gave rise to the subjects “right of revolution”—grounded on both natural law and English constitutional doctrine.”

Examples of the right of revolution as positive law

Although many declarations of independence seek legitimacy by appealing to the right of revolution, far fewer constitutions mention this right or guarantee this right to citizens because of the destabilizing effect such a guarantee would likely produce. Among the examples of an articulation of a right of revolution as positive law include:

Whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

The Kentuckyconstitution also guarantees a right to alter, reform or abolish their government in the Kentucky Bill of Rights:

All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety, happiness and the protection of property. For the advancement of these ends, they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may deem proper.

All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness. For the advancement of these ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think proper.

3d. That Government ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people; and that the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive to the good and happiness of mankind.

All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.

The preface to the French Constitution of 1793 is a “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen” with several right of revolution provisions which stated in

Article 11: Any act directed against a person, apart from the cases and without the forms determined by law, is arbitrary and tyrannical; if attempt is made to execute such act by force, the person who is the object thereof has the right to resist it by force.

Article 12: Those who incite, dispatch, sign, or execute arbitrary acts, or cause them to be executed, are guilty and must be punished.

Article 27: Let any individual who would usurp sovereignty be put to death instantly by free men.

Article 33-35: Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man. There is oppression against the social body when a single one of its members is oppressed. There is oppression against every member when the social body is oppressed. When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people, and for every portion thereof, the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.

The post-World War II Grundgesetz, the Fundamental Law of the Federal Republic of Germany contains both entrenched, un-amendable clauses protecting human and natural rights, as well as a clause in its Article 20, recognizing the right of the people to resist unconstitutional tyranny, if all other measures have failed.

The Greek Constitution, in Article 120, states that “[…] it is both the right and the duty of the people to resist by all possible means against anyone who attempts the violent abolition of the Constitution.” All Greek constitutions since the Greek Revolution have contained a similar formulation as the concluding article.

This right is inferred in the third paragraph of the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states: Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by rule of law.”

Relevance of the right of revolution in positive law

Some have argued that because in modern times democratic governments can be overthrown by popular vote, the right of the people to remove the government has become embedded into the political system. In a study of the idea of rule by the people in the American Revolution and in early post-revolutionary America, legal historian Christian G. Fritz writes:

“The constitutional logic of recognizing the people, not a king, as the sovereign implied the irrelevance of a right of revolution in America. This did not develop instantly or uniformly after the establishment of American governments. Some of the first state constitutions included ‘alter or abolish’ provisions that mirrored the traditional right of revolution…. Other state constitutions adopted different versions of this right to ‘alter or abolish’ government that did not sound like the traditional right of revolution. In these provisions, the ability of the people to revise constitutions existed regardless of the traditional preconditions for the right of revolution…. Increasingly, as Americans included it in their constitutions, the right of revolution came to be seen as a constitutional principle permitting the people as the sovereign to control government and revise their constitutions without limit. In this way, the right broke loose from its traditional moorings of resistance to oppression. The alter or abolish provisions could now be interpreted consistent with the constitutional principle that in America, the sovereign was the people.”

See Christian G. Fritz, American Sovereigns: The People and America’s Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008), 14 (noting that under English constitutional law the right of revolution “belonged to the community as a whole, as one of the parties to the original constitutional contract”). See also John Phillip Reid, Constitutional History of the American Revolution (4 vols., University of Wisconsin Press, 1986-1993), I:111 (identifying the collective right of the people “to preserve their rights by force and even rebellion against constituted authority”), III:427n31 (quoting Viscount Bolingbroke that the “collective Body of the People” had the right to “break the Bargain between the King and the Nation”).

Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 33.

See Reid, Constitutional History, I:111 (identifying the collective right of the people “to preserve their rights by force and even rebellion against constituted authority”), III:427n31 (quoting Viscount Bolingbroke that the “collective Body of the People” had the right to “break the Bargain between the King and the Nation”); Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776, 33-34 (“Private individuals were forbidden to take force against their rulers either for malice or because of private injuries, even if no redress for their grievances were afforded by the regularly constituted government”).

Science tells us that the laws of physics are not subject to change, and that these laws determine the interaction of all matter and energy in existence. If no matter or energy– at any level– is outside of the influence of these immutable laws, it could be suggested that every event which ever occurs is the inevitable result of a series of events which began at the inception of the universe.

For the sake of argument, let us suggest that there is no true randomness in the universe, only unpredictability. This would mean that all of the matter and energy which was ejected from the Big Bang followed a set path as the universe expanded. Each particle went where the laws of physics determined it must, depending on its inertia, gravitational influence, friction, etc.

Every object that ever existed was formed by the interaction of matter and energy, working within these laws. Consequently, stars, planets, puppies, and brown paper packages tied up with string all exist because each particle in the collection of particles that make them up followed the laws of physics, from the moment they sprang into existence until the moment they came together to form the object. Furthermore, the path that physics set these particles upon will eventually lead them elsewhere, where they will contribute to the temporary existence of some other inevitable assembly of particles. If it were possible to observe every particle in the universe at once, and one had a complete knowledge of the laws of physics, the future would not be a mystery, it would be predictable with 100% accuracy.

Clearly, this website is the unavoidable product of the creation of the universe. It had to spring into existence at exactly the moment it did. The laws of physics demanded it.

Life obeys physical laws.

Drink some water, eat some food, run to class. The two things that connect these activities and other aspects of life on earth are matter and energy. Matter has mass and occupies space: it is the stuff you and everything else is made of.

Matter comes in a variety of forms. We call these different unique types of matter elements. An atom is the smallest unit of an element that has all of the properties of that element. There are 92 naturally occurring elements in nature. These different forms of matter differ uniquely in their physical and chemical properties: carbon (C) and hydrogen (H) differ in their size, reactiveness with other atoms, and other physical and chemical properties. An element is a substance that cannot be broken down to other substances by ordinary chemical means. An element can be combined with another to make a compound. For instance, hydrogen combines with oxygen to produce water. Scientists use symbols (hydrogen=H, oxygen=O) as a kind of short-hand for describing compounds. For example H2O is mean water is comprised of 2 toms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen.

Energy is a more elusive concept. Formally, it is defined as the ability (or capacity) to do work Work is the product of force and distance. When you are walking up the Hill, you are doing work by applying muscles (force) to move up the Hill (distance). Energy is what you and all living things use to move matter around and to change matter from one form to another. Energy is used to grow your food, to keep you alive (metabolism), to move you from one place to another, and to warm and cool the buildings in which you work and live. The uses and transformations of matter and energy are governed by certain scientific laws, which unlike the laws people enact, cannot be broken.

III. There are three physical laws governing matter and energy that are important to us.

A. Law of Conservation of Matter: (everything must go somewhere)
We talk about consuming, or using up material resources, but actually we don’t consume any matter. We only borrow some of the earth’s resources for a while C taking them from the earth, carrying them to another part of the globe, processing them, using them, and then discarding, reusing, or recycling them. In the process of using matter we may change it to another form, but in every case we neither create nor destroy any measurable amount of matter. This results from the law of conservation of matter: In any physical or chemical change, matter is neither created nor destroyed but merely changed from one form to another. When you throw away something, remember there is no “away.” Everything we think we have thrown away is still here with us in one form or another.
How does this affect environmental science ? Although we can certainly make the environment cleaner, the law of conservation of matter says we will always be faced with pollution of some sort. This means that we must trade-off one form of pollution for another. This trade-off involves making controversial scientific, political, economic, and ethical judgments about what is a dangerous pollution level, to what degree a pollutant must be controlled, and what amount of money we are willing to pay to reduce the amount of a pollutant to a harmless level.
B. The First Law of Energy (First Law of thermodynamics): You can’t get something for nothing

You encounter energy in many forms: mechanical, chemical (food and fuel), electrical, nuclear, heat, and radiant (such as light). Scientists usually classify most forms of energy as either potential or kinetic energy.

1) Kinetic energy is the energy that matter has because of its motion and mass. A moving car, falling rock, and the flow of electrons or charged particles called electrical energy are all examples of kinetic energy.

The amount of kinetic energy matter has depends on both its mass and its velocity (speed). Because of its velocity a bullet fired from a gun can cause more damage that one thrown by hand; and a bowling ball dropped on your foot does more damage that a pool ball.

2) Potential energy: The energy stored by an object as a result of its position or the position of its parts is called potential energy. A rock held in your hand, a bowl of cereal, a stick of dynamite, and a tank of gas are all examples. The rock has stored (or potential) energy that can be released and converted into kinetic energy (in the form of mechanical energy and heat) if it is dropped. Doing work involves changing energy from one form to another.

When you lift an object, chemical energy (a form of potential energy) stored in the chemicals obtained from your digested food is converted into the mechanical energy (kinetic) used to move your arm and the object upward and into heat given off by your body

In an automobile engine, the chemical energy stored in the gasoline is converted into mechanical energy that propels the car and is eventually lost as heat (engine heat), friction of the tires with the ground, and energy imparted to the air as it is pushed out of the way by your car.

A battery converts chemical energy into electrical energy and heat (low grade form of kinetic energy.

In an electric power plant, chemical energy from fossil fuels (potential) or nuclear energy from uranium nuclear fuel (potential) is converted into a combination of mechanical energy and heat. The mechanical energy is used to spin the turbine that converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy and more heat. When the electrical energy oscillates through the filament wires in an ordinary light bulb, it is converted into light and still more heat. Note that in all of these transformations, some energy is always lost as heat that flows into the surrounding environment.

3) Energy changes: What energy changes occur when you drop a rock? Because of its higher position, the rock in your hand has a higher potential energy than the same rock at rest on the ground. When you drop the rock and it hits and eventually rests on the ground, the rock now has a much lower potential energy. Has the amount of energy changed (i.e., the rock lost energy – where did it go?) At first glance it seems so. But according to the first law of conservation of energy, in any ordinary physical or chemical process is neither created nor destroyed but merely change from one form to another.

The energy lost by a system or collection of mater under study (in this instance, the rock) must equal the energy gained by the surroundings or environment (in this instance, air molecules pushed out of the way, and soil particles moved by the impact of the rock). This energy law holds for all systems, living and nonliving.
Let’s look at what really happens. As the rock drops, its potential energy is changed into kinetic energy C both its own and that of the air through which it passes. The friction created when the rock is drops through the air causes air molecules in the air to move faster, so their average temperature rises. This means that some of the rock’s original potential energy has been transferred to the air as heat. When the rock hits the ground more of its mechanical energy is transferred to particles of soil. The energy lost by the rock (system) is exactly equal to the energy gained by its surroundings. Scientists have never seen an instance where energy input does not equal energy output.
C. Second Law of Energy (Second law of thermodynamics): You can’t break even
Energy quality: Because according to the first energy law energy can neither be created nor destroyed, you might think there will always be enough energy. Yet when you fill a car’s tank with gasoline and drive around something is lost. If it isn’t energy, what is it? The second law of energy, also known as the second law of thermodynamics provides the answer to this question.
Energy varies in its quality or ability to do useful work. For useful work to occur energy must move or flow from a level of high-quality (more concentrated) energy to a level of lower-quality (less concentrated) energy. The chemical potential energy concentrated in a lump or coal or a tank of gasoline and the concentrated heat energy at a high temperature are forms of high-quality energy. Because the energy in gasoline or coal is concentrated, they have the ability to perform useful work in moving or changing matter . In contrast, less concentrated heat energy at a low temperature has little remaining ability to perform useful work.
Over the years, after investigating millions of conversions of energy from one form to another, scientists have found that some of the energy is always degraded to a more dispersed and less useful form, usually as heat given off at a low temperature to the surroundings.

In an internal combustion automobile engine, only about 20% of the high-quality chemical energy available in the gasoline is converted to mechanical energy used to propel the car; the remaining 80% is degraded to low-quality heat that is released into the environment. In addition, about 50% of the mechanical energy produced is also degraded to low-quality heat energy through friction, so that 90% of the energy in gasoline is wasted and not used to move the car.

When electrical energy oscillates through the filament wires in an ordinary light bulb, it is converted into a mixture of about 5% useful radiant energy (light) and 95% low-quality heat.

It is interesting to note that much of modern civilization is built around the internal combustion engine and the incandescent light that, respectively, waste 90 and 95% of their initial energy input. Some of this waste is due to the energy-quality tax automatically exacted as a result of the second energy law and some is due to technological designs that waste more energy that necessary.

Most energy exchange processes occur like this (high quality energy to low quality) but there is one VERY IMPORTANT exception: the conversion of solar energy to chemical energy in food by plants and some bacteria. Photosynthesis converts radiant energy (light) from the sun into high-quality chemical energy (stored in the plant in the form of sugar molecules) and low-quality heat energy. If you eat plant food [like spinach], its high-quality chemical energy is transformed within your body to high-quality mechanical energy, used to move your muscles and to perform other life processes, and low-quality heat energy. The process of breaking down food such as sugars to simpler molecules, such as CO2 and water, releasing potential energy in the process, is called respiration. At each step, the low-quality heat flows into the environment. Without the action of plants and bacteria, life as we know it would not exist because animals have no way of turning the radiant energy from the sun into high energy (high quality) food.

So, the first energy law governs the quantity of energy available from an energy conversion process, whereas the second energy law governs the quality of energy available. According to the first law we will never run out of energy, but according to the second law we can run out of high quality or useful energy.
Not only can we not get something for nothing (the first law), we can’t even break even in terms of energy quality (the second law)

The second energy law also tells us that high-grade energy can never be used over again.

We can recycle matter but we can never recycle high-quality energy.
Fuels and foods can be used only once to perform useful work. Once a piece of coal or a tank full of gasoline is burned, its high-quality potential energy is lost forever. This means that the net useful, or high-quality energy available from fossil fuels, uranium, or any concentrated energy source is even less than predicted by the first energy law:
D. Second energy law and increasing disorder: The second energy law can be stated in a number of ways:
Heat always flows spontaneously from hot (high-quality energy) to cold (low-quality energy). Energy tends to flow or change spontaneously from and concentrate and ordered form to a more dispersed and disorder form. You learned this the first time you touched a hot stove as a child!

Other examples of increasing disorder:
a) A glass falls to the floor and shatters into a more disordered state
b) A dye crystal dropped into water spontaneously dissolves and spreads (dispersed and disordered state throughout the solution)
c) When you die, the highly ordered array of molecules decays to many smaller molecules that become dispersed throughout the environment
d) Smoke from a smokestack and exhaust from an auto disperse spontaneously to a more random or disordered state in the atmosphere
e) Pollutants dumped into a river spread spontaneously throughout the water. Until we discovered that the atmosphere and water systems could be overloaded, we assumed that such spontaneous dilution solve the problem of pollution.

In all systems, it is not enough just to look at the isolated system’s entropy. You must look at changes in disorder in both the system and its environment or surroundings. All organisms and ecosystems are not closed systems, but open systems. Look at your own body. To form and preserve its highly ordered arrangement of molecules and its organized network of chemical reactions, you must continually obtain high-quality energy and raw materials from your surroundings.

This means that disorder is created in the environment: primarily in the form of low-quality heat. Just think of all the disorder in the form of heat that is added to the environment just to keep you alive. Planting, growing, processing, and cooking foods all require energy inputs that add heat to the environment. Indeed, your body continuously gives off heat equal to that from a 100-watt light bulb, explaining why a closed room full of people gets warm.
This does not even count the enormous amounts of disorder added to the environment when concentrated deposits of minerals and fuels are extracted from the earth and burned or dispersed to heat the buildings you use, to transport you, and to make roads, clothes, and shelter.
Thus, all forms of life are tiny pockets of order maintained by creating a sea of disorder around themselves. The primary characteristic of modern industrial society is an every increasing use or flow of high-quality energy to maintain the order in our bodies and the pockets of order we call civilization. As a result, today’s industrialized nations are creating more environmental disorder than any society in human history.

In considering the system and surroundings as a whole, scientists have found that there is always a net increase in disorder with any spontaneous chemical or physical change, either in the environment, in the system, or in both. Thus we must modify our original hypothesis to include our surroundings: Any system and its surroundings as a whole spontaneously tend toward increasing randomness or disorder, or increasing entropy.

Scientists frequently use the concept of entropy, a measure of relative randomness or disorder. A random system has high entropy (high disorder), and an orderly system has low entropy (low disorder). Using this concept, we can state the second energy law also means that the world gets more disordered each day.

2nd law also states that systems tend to go to higher states of disorder (entropy) (your room example) where the useful amount of high quality energy decreases.

Life depends on physical world, usually living things expend energy to work against physical forces and to maintain order in their bodies. A bird flies by expending energy from metabolizing food, but this expenditure of energy may bring more energy to the bird (i.e., finding and capturing more food, escaping enemies). It appears that life violates the 2nd law (this argument has been used to support creationism – living things are too intricate to have evolved, also, if evolution appear to bring on more complex organisms, isn’t this violating the 2nd law). No, not really. You see the increase in disorder of the environment through time. The sun powers the maintenance of complexity by providing us and the earth with a constant supply of high-quality energy (i.e., neither the earth nor living things are truly closed systems). In addition, all living things die, and thus consequently follow the 2nd law eventually (the dead body decomposes to CO2, water, and various nutrients).

Sunlight is the most important energy source to earth. It warms the earth, the atmosphere and the oceans, sunlight energy drives the oceans and air circulation patterns, and sunlight energy is captured by plants and converted to chemical energy in food.
E. These laws and environmental concerns

The law of conservation of matter and the first and second laws of energy give us keys for understanding and dealing with environmental problems.
The “throwaway” society found in most industrial countries is based on using more and more of the earth’s matter and energy resources at a faster and faster rate. The earth receives a constant flow of energy from the sun, but for all practical purposes little matter enters or leaves the earth [meteors in; space craft components out]. We have all of the matter that we will ever have.

Some people and scientists (note: the last phrase does not suggest that scientists are humanoid aliens) would point out that not all is bad:
a) Technology can help us stretch our supplies of matter resources and perhaps find substitutes
b) Some argue that because of the matter and energy laws, sooner or later we must face up to the finiteness of the earth’s resource supplies
c) Others talk of infinite supplies or resources on earth or propose schemes to get new supplies of energy and matter from space
d) Others agree that resource supplies on earth are finite but argue that we are not close enough to exceeding any built-in limits to worry about them

Some say we should become a matter-recycling society so that economic growth can continue indefinitely without depleting material resources. But there is a catch to recycling. In using resources such as iron, we dig up concentrated deposits of iron ore. Then, we disperse this concentrated iron over much of the globe as it is fashioned into useful products, discarded, or changed into other chemical substances. To recycle, we must collect it, transport it to central recycling centers or steel mills, and melt/purify it so that it can be used again. This is where the two energy laws come in. Recycling matter always requires high-quality energy. In the long run, a recycling society based on indefinitely increasing economic growth must have an essentially inexhaustible and affordable supply of high-quality energy. And high-quality energy, unlike matter, can never be recycled.

“Don’t we have an essentially infinite supply of solar energy flowing into the earth?” Sunlight reaching the earth is high-quality energy, but the quantity reaching a particular area of the earth’s surface each minute or hour is low and is nonexistent at night. Using solar energy to provide hot water and to heat a house to moderate temperatures makes sense. However, using solar energy to provide the high temperatures needed to melt metals or to produce electricity in a solar power plant may not make sense. In these cases, solar energy must be collected and concentrated to provide the necessary high temperatures, which is quite expensive.
One way to lessen the problem involves the development and widespread use of solar photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight directly to electricity in one simple nonpolluting step.
If present research increases the efficiency of such cells and decreases their cost, we could be covering entire roofs of houses and building with rows of these cells to provide all the electricity we need. Such a development could, in a fairly short time, make large, centralized electric power plants in the world obsolete. Mass production and transportation of solar cells would require energy and matter resources. But most of the matter needed for solar cells would come from silicon, one of the most abundant chemicals on earth.

Even with such a technological advance, the second energy law tells us that as we use more and more energy to transform matter into products and then recycle these products, the disorder in the environment will increase. Thus the second energy law tells us that the more we try to order, or “conquer” the earth, the greater the disorder we put into the environment. We will always attempt to order the environment to some extent for our benefit, but the second energy law helps us understand that we should be so with ecological wisdom, care, and restraint.

Why do some think that we can avoid the effects of the second law of energy? Part of the problem is ignorance. Many have not heard of the second law of thermodynamics, let alone understand its significance. In addition, this law has a cumulative rather than individual effect. You accept the law of gravity because it limits you and everyone else on a personal level. However, although your individual activities automatically increase the disorder in the environment, this effect seems small and insignificant. But the cumulative impact of the disorder-producing activities of billions of individuals trying to convert more and more of the world’s resources to trash and low-quality heat as fast as possible eventually can have a large, negative impact on the local and global life-support systems.

As we find more sources of energy, it is argued that more people on this planet will benefit from cheaper, reliable, abundant energy for their wants and needs. However, if we bypass one limiting factor, we run into another. Some scientists worry that if we use more energy, it just allows humankind to further accelerate the use and abuse of out other resources, greatly increasing the problems of scarcity and pollution. Think of the huge impact if any living person lived the same lifestyle as the people in North America (we are about 5% of the human population, but we use 20 to 90% or more of most resources, and we contribute more to environmental degradation and pollution than many other countries).

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. — James Madison

The meaning of the Second Amendment depends upon who you talk to. The National Rifle Association, which has the Second Amendment (minus the militia clause) engraved on its headquarters building in Washington, insists that the Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to possess and carry a wide variety of firearms. Advocates of gun control contend that the Amendment was only meant to guarantee to States the right to operate militias. For almost seventy years following its cryptic decision of U. S. vs. Miller in 1939, the Court ducked the issue, finally to resolve the question in its much anticipated 2008 decision, District of Columbia v. Heller

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Now that the United States is protected by a trained, volunteer military force rather than a civilian militia, is the Second Amendment still valid? Does the Second Amendment exclusively provide for arms to supply a civilian militia, or does it guarantee a separate universal right to bear arms?

The two cases generally cited as most relevant to the Second Amendment are:

United States v. Cruikshank (1875), in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an 1870 federal law punishing individuals for violating the civil rights of others, using the Fourteenth Amendment to justify federal intervention in law enforcement (which was generally left to the states). The test case was the 1873 Colfax massacre, in which over 100 African Americans were murdered by the White League, a militant white supremacist organization that was extremely active in Louisiana in the decades following the American Civil War. Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite delivered a ruling stating that the law was unconstitutional. While the case had no direct relevance to the Second Amendment, Waite did briefly list an individual right to bear arms among those rights that would have been protected by the federal law.

U.S. v. Miller (1939), in which two bank robbers transported a sawed-off shotgun across state lines in violation of the National Firearms Act of 1934. After the bank robbers challenged the law on Second Amendment grounds, James Clark McReynolds delivered a majority ruling stating that the Second Amendment was not relevant to their case, in part because a sawed-off shotgun is not a standard weapon for use in U.S. civilian militias.

History

The well-regulated militia referred to in the Second Amendment was, in fact, the 18th-century equivalent to the U.S. Armed Forces. Other than a small force of paid officers (primarily responsible for supervising civilian conscripts), the United States that existed at the time the Second Amendment was proposed had no professional, trained army. Instead it relied almost exclusively on civilian militias for self-defense–in other words, the rounding up of all available men between the ages of 18 and 50. In the event of foreign invasion, there would be no trained military force to hold back the British or the French. The United States relied on the power of its own citizens to defend the country against attack, and had committed to such an isolationist foreign policy that the chances of ever deploying forces overseas seemed, at the time, remote at best.

This began to change with the presidency of John Adams, who established a professional navy to protect U.S.-bound trade vessels from privateers. Today, there is no military draft at all. The U.S. Army is made up of a mix of full-time and part-time professional soldiers who are trained well, and compensated for their service. Furthermore, the U.S. Armed Forces have not fought a single battle on home soil since the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Clearly, a well-regulated civilian militia is no longer a military necessity. Does the second clause of the Second Amendment still apply even if the first clause, providing its rationale, is no longer.

According to a 2003 Gallup/NCC poll, most Americans believe that the Second Amendment protects individual firearm ownership. Points in their favor:

A clear majority of the Founding Fathers unquestionably believed in a universal right to bear arms.

The last time the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the civilian militia interpretation of the Second Amendment was 1939–almost 70 years ago, at a time when policies enforcing racial segregation, banning birth control, and mandating recital of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools were also considered constitutional.

The Constitution is a document, not a piece of software. Regardless of why the Second Amendment justifies its own existence, the fact remains that it still exists as part of the Constitution.

The Eighteenth Amendment established Prohibition; the Twenty-First Amendment overturned it. The American people have the means, through the legislative process, to overturn the Second Amendment if it is no longer considered worthwhile. If it’s obsolete, why hasn’t this happened?

The Constitution aside, bearing arms is a fundamental human right. It is the only means the American people have to reclaim control of their government, should it one day become irredeemably corrupt.

The Gallup/NCC poll also found that of the 68% of respondents who believed that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, 82% still believe that the government can regulate firearm ownership to at least some extent. Only 12% believe that the Second Amendment prevents the government from restricting ownership of firearms.

Cons

The same Gallup/NCC poll cited above also found that 28% of respondents believe that the Second Amendment was created to protect civilian militias, and does not guarantee the right to bear arms. Points in their favor:

While the Founding Fathers may have supported the ownership of slow, expensive powder-loaded rifles, it’s doubtful that they would have been able to conceive of shotguns, assault rifles, handguns, and other contemporary weaponry.

The only U.S. Supreme Court ruling that actually focused on the Second Amendment, U.S. v. Miller (1939), found that there is no individual right to bear arms independent of national self-defense concerns. The Supreme Court has spoken only once, it has spoken in favor of the civilian militia interpretation, and it has not spoken since. If the Court has held a different view, it has certainly had ample opportunity to rule on the matter since then.

The Second Amendment makes no sense without the prospect of civilian militias, as it is clearly a propositional statement.

If you really want to overthrow the government, bearing arms probably isn’t enough. You’d need aircraft to take the skies, hundreds of tanks to defeat ground forces, and a full navy. The only way to reform a powerful government in this day and age is through nonviolent means.

What the majority of Americans believe about the Second Amendment is unsurprising, because Americans have been misinformed about what the Second Amendment accomplishes and how federal courts have traditionally interpreted it.

Outcome

The individual rights interpretation reflects the view of the majority of Americans, and more clearly reflects the philosophical underpinnings provided by the Founding Fathers, but the civilian militia interpretation reflects the views of the Supreme Court and seems to be a more precise reading of the text of the Second Amendment.

California is set to become the nation’s least gun-friendly state as it considers the passage of several anti-gun bills that make New York look free by comparison.

The bills, worming their way through the state legislature, are being touted as measures to reduce gun violence. However, the scope of the anti-gun legislation far outpaces the measures of other anti-Second Amendment states.

The gun control fever that swept the nation’s leftist lawmakers just months ago has largely subsided as grassroots advocacy sent a resounding message that Americans were not in favor of any new, unconstitutional measures that curtail Second Amendment rights.

The bills before the California Legislature include a bill that calls for a statewide database that registers ammunition sales. They are also considering a law that makes it a crime to possess a firearm that isn’t locked up when not being carried, a measure that is sure to rile gun rights advocates as the purpose of home defense weapons is to have them readily available for home protection.

Of course, a strengthening of bans against so-called “assault weapons” is also in place, with bills calling for a ban on all semiautomatic weapons that can accept a detachable magazine and a ban on so-called “high capacity” magazines that would call for those already in possession of such magazines to throw them away or face charges.

The California Legislature is also considering a 10% tax increase on ammunition sales.

Anti-gun rights advocates are hoping that these measures will reignite anti-gun passions similar to those seen post-Newtown.

“When we see movement on the California bills and the sort of tenacity that you had post-Newtown, it makes it really hard for the gun lobby to say the momentum has gone away. And it’s certainly something Congress pays attention to,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director at the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C. “You can’t underestimate how important it is for Congress to see movement in the states, especially big states like California.”

“While they may try to reignite their lost momentum, I don’t think anything California does is going to affect what Washington does,” said Larry Keane, Senior Vice President of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The bills are in varying stages of consideration with some more likely to pass than others. However, while minor firearms laws may emerge from the California Legislature, it is unlikely that the more stern bills in this slate of legislation will get the necessary votes as enthusiasm for gun control has largely subsided nationwide.

“We’re going to be open to amendments and suggestions from the administration and the Assembly, but we think we’ve hit the sweet spot in a lot of these areas,” state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg stated.

“I don’t have any illusion that whatever any state does, even California, will have an impact on the intransigence on Capitol Hill around some of these issues,” but that’s no reason to give up, he said. “We ought to do everything we can to protect the people of our state from some of these horrible things that have happened.”

As Democrats continually insist that anti-gun measures are needed to keep people safe, it should be noted that cities like Newark, New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago all maintain some of the highest gun violence rates and some of the strictest gun control measures.

Chicago remains a warzone of gun violence. After four decades of strict, unconstitutional gun restrictions, the citizens of the Windy City remain potential victims for those who purchase and carry guns illegally. In fact, on Monday, 6 people were shot in Chicago in the hour between 6:15 PM and 7:13 PM.

Obama is getting dangerously close to signing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. If he signs this treaty and the Senate ratifies it, the Second Amendment is toast. And your guns will be in the control of dictators around the world.

This sounds like a bad movie or a conspiracy theory, and I wish it were, but it is possible. 130 bipartisan members of Congress signed a letter that Rep. Mike Lee wrote to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

The 13-pageletterasks Obama and Kerry NOT to sign the Arms Trade Treaty and instead listen to the American people for once. If you are a gun owner, you should express this same sentiment to all of your elected officials. Ask them to oppose the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)

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Bureaucrats from 150 nations are ramping up efforts to impose gun control through international pact. Here in the United States, the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty has become the vehicle to drive an agenda that is deeply controversial because once a treaty is ratified by the Senate, it becomes the supreme law of the land.

John Kerry – no friend of the Second Amendment — announced support for the treaty, which calls for international regulations on firearms, including personal firearms as well as military weapons. During the presidential campaign, President Obama was evasive about his position on the treaty. Now that he has fully “evolved” on the Second Amendment, he has the “flexibility” of not having to face voters again, and is pushing for the treaty.

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about what’s being cooked up in Turtle Bay. Proponents say the treaty is only meant to crack down on illegal gun-smuggling, and the only people who ought to be concerned are military strongmen looking for a good deal on black-market rocket launchers. Of course, there’s more to the story. The exact wording of the agreement, and more importantly, how vague passages can be interpreted and twisted by the courts, will determine what the treaty actually means. It could, for example, force America to implement a national gun-registration scheme, ban importation of weapons and impose burdensome regulations on transfers.

The “Review Conference on Illicit Small Arms Trade” adopted a “consensus outcome document” that states in Article 2, Paragraph 4 that signatories to the treaty would “establish or update, as appropriate, and maintain a national control list that shall include the items that fall within paragraph A1 .” Paragraph A1 includes small personal firearms.

Under Article 6, Paragraph 3, signatories (including the United States) would be required to set up an “effective, transparent and predictable national control system regulating the transfer of conventional arms .” Once again, “conventional arms” would include civilian firearms protected by the Second Amendment.

Article 8, Paragraph 2 requires countries to “put in place adequate measures that will allow them, where necessary, to monitor and control imports of items covered by the scope of this Treaty.” This could prevent U.S. gun owners from buying foreign guns and parts. Other provisions of the document “underscored efforts in marking, record-keeping and cooperation in tracing small arms .” Tracing weapons is legalese for the creation of a gun registry.

The administration pretends that ratification of this deal would do nothing to undermine constitutional rights. “We will not support any treaty that would be inconsistent with U.S. law and the rights of American citizens under our Constitution,” says Mr. Kerry. The secretary forgets that we can read, too. The written provisions of the treaty and the administration’s domestic agenda on these issues make such reassurance hollow, indeed.

In the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, Mr. Obama unleashed his all-out effort to ban “assault weapons” — the most popular type of rifle sold in America today. The White House proposals, however, should be doomed in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. Use of the treaty process is a way to bypass that uncooperative body and accomplish many of the same gun-control goals with only 67 Senate votes.

If proponents of the arms-trade treaty are honest about their intentions, they should have no problem amending the draft treaty to explicitly limit the agreement to large, military weapons and exclude all civilian firearms that fall under the protection of the Second Amendment. The National Rifle Association has offered language that would amend the treaty to eliminate any exploitable ambiguity. Unless such corrections are made, the Senate should stand strong against international deals to trash the constitutional rights of Americans.

Article 5 of the Arms Trade Treaty creates a “National Control List.” Global leaders around the world who sign the treaty: “shall establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list.”

Obama promised us he was not going to establish a national gun registry. “He’s not seeking a registry,” White House Spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on March 25, 2013.

Obama told the truth but not the whole truth. He didn’t want a national registry. He wanted a global registry. He wanted foreign governments to know whether you own a gun. That way, if you even think about jumping ship and leaving the United States to seek freedom elsewhere, there will effectively be an asterisk next to your name. Probably something like:

Name: Jimmy Brown

Criminal Activity: None

Gun Owner: Yes.

Notes: Watch out for this dude; he’s a duck hunter. He shoots lots of waterfowl in the fall. No criminal record. But, be alert. Could be a terrorist.

United Nations Would Control All Guns and Ammo

The New American also reports that Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Arms Trade Treaty give the UN the authority to apprehend the right of private citizens to: “own, buy, sell, trade, or transfer all means of armed resistance, including handguns.” Ammunition, parts and components also fall under UN purview.

They DO HAVE the authority to take away our rights. A bully with a pack of international bullies backing him up can only use force to extort your “natural rights.” That’s what Obama’s administration is trying to do; extort decent and law-abiding Americans like you.

The U.S. Congress will effectively break for their annual August recess TODAY! Your support is needed NOW since they won’t return until the sixth of September.

While it’s true that the U.S. Congress will be inactive these next few weeks, for Obama it’s “business as usual.”

In fact, according to Obama mouthpiece Jay Carney, the President has a very big item on his agenda this month – he is planning to stand with the globalists and sign the United Nation’s Arms Trade Treaty.

In June, Carney confirmed that Obama will sign the anti-gun treaty “before the end of August.”

We know that Obama has long been an enemy of privately-owned guns held by free, law-abiding individuals – the type of gun ownership that the Second Amendment expressly protects – which is why he continues to do all he can to regulate them out of our hands.

Through 23 Executive Actions – some of which are starting to materialize – and urging Congress to pass “common sense” gun-control legislation, we have seen Obama ramp up his anti-gun agenda since January.

Knowing this, Obama’s willingness to sign the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty comes as no surprise whatsoever, as it is a major component of the global organization’s disarmament agenda.

The fact is: Obama could add his signature to the Arms Trade Treaty at any moment.

In order to prevent the globalists from trampling on us and our Constitution, we need to contact U.S. Senators right now demanding that they stand against this Treaty when they return to their offices early next month.

Nations Lining Up

After years of preparation, the U.N. Treaty was approved by a vote of 154 to 3 on April 2, and on June 3rd the doors opened for U.N. member nations to ratify it! Eighty nations have signed the treaty so far, and, sadly, our “leaders” have us in line to do the same, despite the Constitution.

However, the good news is that Obama’s signature is only symbolic without the consent of the United States Senate. This is to say that even if Obama were to add his signature to the treaty today, the United States will not yet be bound by its language.

The real battle is in the United States Senate – the body that does have power ratify and adopt international treaties. If the Upper Chamber of Congress accepts the Arms Trade Treaty then, and only then, will our country be bound by the globalist language that the treaty contains.

If we want to remain a sovereign and independent nation under Constitutional rule, it is absolutely imperative that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty be rejected.

Should Barack Obama’s August signing spark Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the treaty to a vote when the Senate returns from their break, we must urge Senate right now to prepare to vote against it!

Just like the United Nations Small Arms Treaty, this Global Treaty is incompatible with the Second Amendment to the Constitution… despite what its advocates claim.

Senator Mike Lee of Utah, one of thirty-four Senators who voted on a resolution in April opposing the Arms Trade Treaty, says that he will block the anti-gun U.N. effort “as long as [he is] breathing in the U.S. Senate.”

In a statement, Sen. Lee said:

“I have great concerns that this treaty can be used to violate the second amendment rights of American citizens, and do not believe we should sign any treaty that infringes on the sovereignty of our country.”

Likewise, Senator James Inhofe has committed to oppose this treaty’s ratification. The Oklahoma Senator says:

“The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty that passed in the General Assembly … would require the United States to implement gun-control legislation as required by the treaty, which could supersede the laws our elected officials have already put into place. It’s time the Obama administration recognizes it is already a non-starter, and Americans will not stand for internationalists limiting and infringing upon their Constitutional rights.”

In order to prevent the Arms Trade Treaty from carrying any force in the United States it must be rejected by the upper house of the United States Congress. We must make sure that we are making clear our demands and securing as many pro-gun advocates as we can to defeat this supranational attack on our Second Amendment!

Take action and tell U.S. Senators that you oppose the ratification of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty!

Senate gun-grabbers are not a small minority – in fact, we have already witnessed their full-fledge assault on our right to keep and bear arms this year! We know that there are plenty of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that seem to think that increased gun-control is “common sense” and that ignoring the Constitution.

When the “Safe Schools, Safe Communities” gun-control bill was tabled in April, Mr. Reid said that “it’s only a matter of time” before he brings gun-control legislation back to the Senate floor.

The fact is: Senate gun-grabbers are far from retiring their agenda, and this dangerous U.N. treaty – which so many falsely claim is innocuous – would greatly aid them in their illegal and unconstitutional cause.

The Senate needs a 2/3 majority to adopt this treaty, and as Barack Obama adds his signature of approval we must make sure that we are doing all we can to stop the Senate from doing the same.

Marginalia: Proponents of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty claim that the international agreement would only regulate arms as they cross international borders and that the treaty has no power over arms within each nation state itself. This cannot be believed as governments always seek to expand their powers.

This is a very controversial clause within the Constitution, as far as what its boundaries are, i.e. how much power the Federal government has. The powers of the Federal government, according to the Constitution are limited to only ones specifically given, while the 10th Amendment states that all powers NOT specifically enumerated to the Federal Government are given to the States.

The United States must not ratify this treaty as it would violate the Second Amendment and property rights.

Pay close attention to this group: International Action Network on Small Arms

The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is the global movement against gun violence – a network of 800 civil society organisations working in over 120 countries to stop the proliferation and misuse of small arms and light weapons

IANSA seeks to make people safer from gun violence by securing stronger regulation on guns in society and better controls on arms exports. It represents the voices of civil society on the international stage and in the UN process on small arms, drawing on the practical experience of its members to campaign for policies that will protect human security.

IANSA is composed of a wide range of organizations concerned with small arms, including policy development organizations, national gun control groups, women’s groups, research institutes, aid agencies, faith groups, survivors, human rights and community action organizations.

Members of the IANSA Women’s Network are working to stop gun violence in the home, on the streets and on the battlefield. They are using United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 “to increase women’s participation in disarmament processes and in the development of small arms policy and practice.” They “ensure” that women’s interests are served by these policies and campaign to break the link between violence and masculinity. The network produces a quarterly bulletin called Women at Work: Preventing Gun Violence.

Natural law, or the law of nature (Latin: lex naturalis), is a system of law that is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the “use of reason to analyze human nature—both social and personal”—and deduce binding rules of moral behavior from it. Natural law is classically contrasted with the positive law of a given political community, society, or state, and thus serves as a standard by which to criticize said positive law. In legal theory, on the other hand, the interpretation of positive law requires some reference to natural law. On this understanding of natural law, natural law can be invoked to criticize judicial decisions about what the law says but not to criticize the best interpretation of the law itself. Some scholars use natural law synonymously with natural justice or natural right (Latin ius naturale),while others distinguish between natural law and natural right.

Although natural law is often conflated with common law, the two are distinct in that natural law is a view that “certain rights or values” are inherent in or universally cognizable by virtue of human reason or human nature, while common law is the legal tradition whereby certain rights or values are legally cognizable by virtue of judicial recognition or articulation.

Positive law (lat. ius positum) is the term generally used to describe man-made laws which oblige or specify an action. It also describes the establishment of specific rights for an individual or group. Etymologically, the name derives from the verb to posit.

The concept of positive law is distinct from “natural law“, which comprises “inherent rights,” conferred not by act of legislation but by “God, nature or reason.” Positive law is also described as the law that applies at a certain time (present or past) at a certain place, consisting of statutory law, and case law as far as it is binding. More specifically, positive law may be characterized as “law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society.”

What makes the law legitimate?

What is a legitimate source of law?

What binds people to obey the law?

Is there an essential connection between the law and morality?

Can the content of a law disqualify it from being considered a legitimate law, which must be obeyed?

Natural Law theorists such as Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas argue that a “law is only just and legitimate if it promotes the common good.” For Legal Positivists like John Austin, H.L.A Hart, and Thomas Hobbes, “a law is legitimate if it has been enacted through the proper channels by someone with the power to do so regardless of the content of that law.” While each theorist presents his own explanation, each seeks to answer these crucial questions about law and society.

Legitimate laws must come from legitimate sources.Legal Positivists argue that for the source of law to be legitimate, it must come from a source of power. For Austin, the source of law must be the only person who the subjects are in the habit of obeying. They must also be willing to back their sanctions and laws with credible force. Natural Law theorists posit that the “source of law is divine” or can be discovered and formed according to what is just and will promote the common good.

Aquinas takes the stance that the source of divine law is God. Human laws are derived from these divine laws and practical reason. Aristotle and Plato agree that concepts of law and justice are derived from nature and reason, which govern actions to move toward the higher good. Aquinas makes the distinction that the person or persons who makes the law must be in care of the community. This is similar to Hobbes in that he believes the duty of those who make law to be to care for and protect the society that they govern. Hobbesfinds a middle path on the topic of the source o law. He contends that the individual subordinates himself to the sovereign who can create and enforce laws according to a social contract with the people.

Hart differs from Austin in that he believes that the sovereign cannot simply make laws as he or she pleases. The source of law is the sovereign who produces laws through following primary and secondary rules. Natural Law theorist St. Thomas Aquinas argues that human law is legitimate only if it is in line with divine law and promotes universal happiness. All law is fashioned to the common welfare of men.

He posits that neglecting God’s law or the universal happiness in the formation of a law makes it unjust. Accordingly, Aquinas advances that an unjust law is not a legitimate law at all and does not have to be obeyed.

In stark contrast, Legal Positivist John Austin contends that legitimate law is nothing more than commands from a sovereign to the people who must obey him backed by credible threats and sanctions.

The law’s legitimacy is completely independent of the morality of its content and must always be obeyed. It draws its validity from the power of the sovereign who is the only ruler that subjects are in the habit of obeying. He argues that the law as it exists is separate from what it ought to be. Natural Law Theorists heckle this notion because it shows no concern for morality or protection of the people. Austin maintains the division between morality and the law and concludes that the content of the law islegitimate through the power that created it.

On the more moderate end of the Legal Positivist tradition is a philosopher who was influenced by both Natural and Positivist jurisprudence. Thomas Hobbes argues that the law receives its legitimacy from a social contract between the people who are governed and their sovereign. He likens government to a biblical sea monster. Like an anatomical head, the sovereign rules over the body of subjects whose power is beneath it. Like the monster, the government is all-powerful. Yet unlike Austin, he believes there to be

limits to political obligation. He argues that when a citizen’s life is in danger, they have the right to disobey the government or a law.

Challenging Austin’sidea that the law is legitimate because of the credible force of the sovereign is H.L.A. Hart.

He agrees with Hobbes’ idea that laws aresocial contracts between the government and the people. He contends that legitimate law is not just commands backed by real force and sanctions, but because it has been enacted through primary and secondary rules. If a law has been dually enacted where primary rules regulate conduct and secondary rules allow primary rules to be created or altered then it is legitimate and must be obeyed.

Additionally, Hart sees that Austin’s Command Theory presents a problem inthe varying types of laws that he believes need to be in place, “notably thoseconferring legal powers to adjudicate or legislate (public powers) or to create or vary legal relations (private powers) which cannot, without absurdity, be construed as orders backed by threats.”

Similar to the concept of legitimate law is the concept of what is just. Natural Law theorists Plato and Aristotle advance the idea justice is a virtue. It is an inseparable part of oneself and is a driving force toward the common good. Those who subscribe to the Natural Law tradition claim that what is good and just is based on an objective standard of what is right and wrong. Plato argues that there is an order to the universe which He posits that the just man can do nothing to harm anyone else and does his part as an individual in society to help it function. Aristotle posits that each man should get what is due to him and that every action has a motive and it is to move toward the higher good. He also posits that justice is more than just being honest and following the obligations provided by the law. This implies that the law is open to interpretation and criticism if the content obligates one to go against the goal of a peaceful coexistence. Aristotle agrees with Plato in giving each man his right is just as long as it promotesthe good, or “distributive justice”.

They argue that the law is out in the world waiting to be discovered. The law reveals itself when people live virtuously to help achieve the common good. For example,

“Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so, any more than they would say that I ought always to speak the truth to one who is in his condition.”

Their theoretical perspectives can be attributed to their philosophical time period as opposed to the more practical thinkers of later times.

Once legitimate sources have created legitimate and just laws, there must be a reason as to why people are compelled to follow or obey them. Natural Law subscribers believe that the ultimate end is the greater good and law is ordered to serve the well-being of man. Good laws should be followed because they follow reason and are inherently valuable and are a means to the ultimate human end or telos.

Additionally, they argue that man was given reason, which distinguishes him from beasts. It is this reason, which allows him to control his actions and impulses to act justly. Acting justly and virtuously leads to the good life and the ultimate happiness.

Opposite these thinkers is Austin. He believes that people are obedient to the letter of the law because if they do not then they will be “punished with force.”

Fear becomes a motivator

Each philosopher sought to answer what makes law or justice legitimate. For some such as the Natural Law theorists, it comes a drive toward the greater good, reason and the divine through discovery or someone in the care of the community; and is maintained through the same means, which discovered and created it. For others such as Legal positivists it comes from power or a social contract, which binds subjects with fear, force, or reason.The two groups intersect and diverge at varying points, but all ultimately seek to understand a part of what is so central to the human condition, the law.

PlatoDialogues of Plato translated into English with Analyses and Introductions by B. Jowett, M.A. in Five Volumes. 3rd edition revised and corrected (Oxford University Press,1892). Chapter:BOOK I *Ideas were paraphrased from the above works cited.